Readers, you might have noticed that extreme ideas and extreme people attract me. When I noticed that a favourite blog of mine posted about Yukio Mishima, I thought i'd have a look ( Read more... )

Last night I had a rare night out. Some work colleagues and I went to the Christmas markets in Manchester. We met up with some friends of mine too. We went through what's nowadays called Spinningfields. I hadn't been there since it was built - what a surprise that place is. Nothing like the Manchester I know. It could have been anywhere. At least, ( Read more... )

You can have it both ways with this meat-eating business. Go vegetarian except for special occasions, whereupon foie gras and crated veal are to be consumed. Consider it a sacred rite in the persecution of the notion that treating animals nicely makes them taste nicer ( Read more... )

Here are some links to other people's online journals that have inspired me recently.

possibly the perfect Californian garden

perfection in form, symmetry and colour

scroll down for the freak show

The Carpetbaggers (1964) has been on my list for a few years. Then I noticed that someone has uploaded it, albeit in twenty-odd segments. It is trash of the most hallowed kind. I haven't got through it all yet but here's a highlight for your delectation.
excerpt

Here's something else I enjoyed lately-
My Decadent Career

A friend of mine found me a copy of John Hunt's account of the first ascent of Everest in 1953. It's a good read, though one can tell that the author is an army officer and not a writer by trade. It set me thinking of a tale told to me by my half-brother's father of a more knotty mountaineering fable involving one Maurice Wilson. I didn't entirely ( Read more... )

I've been working on a new journal. As I mentioned last time, it concerns plants and gardens. It's called "thechthonianlife", by way of contrast with self-sufficiency themed '70s situation comedy The Good Life. It's found here ( Read more... )

By way of having some record of it. I'd forget: most of them are library books. Libraries provide such good service. One or two I saw on the shelf (the library is right next to my place of work), most they sourced within the county for me, Nightwood they didn't have but bought for the library because I requested it.

Stefan Aust The Baader-Meinhof ( Read more... )

The last few entries have been my version of the test card; a "come back when there's something to look at" set up. I've been considering how to go about setting up a blog just for gardening. There would be no point in setting it up only to become swiftly dissatisfied with it. There are some good ones around and i'd like to aspire to a decent ( Read more... )

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